I had to completely rework the topic of my paper last night after grudgingly accepting the fact that there just aren’t enough sources (that I could find) to support my argument that books will never die. I planned to argue this by explaining the features of a print book that digital books cannot replicate such as the smell of old ink, the feel of aged paper between fingertips, and the heft of large book. To me these are a comfort and a large part of the reading experience that I never want to give up, but I couldn’t find enough people who wrote about it in scholarly way. I even dove into psychology databases looking for some link between reading from a print book and the production of serotonin or some other happy chemical in the brain, but nothing. Most of the articles on print versus digital are in favor of digital for learning purposes and storage purposes. It seems no one really cares about keeping the book alive. I am determined though so I changed my essays argument. Now I argue that in order for a paper book to survive in our growing digital world it must learn from its digital counterparts to become machine-like and I support my argument by giving examples such as the physical mechanics of pop-up books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the form mechanics of text on the page like we saw in House of Leaves, and the marriage of print and digital in augmented reality books like Between Page and Screen.
One thought on “Junie B. Jones and the Lack of Sources”
Comments are closed.
Hello Junie,
It sounds like this paper is giving you a great deal of grief. I myself have also been struggling to find sources supporting the euphoria of reading a physical book. I think, all things considered, you have done a great job turning a negative into a positive, and I believe your new topic sounds very creative and interesting!
-Clarisse McClellan